MP3 Gain on Musicbee

[railfan-eric28]

I use MP3 Gain for my all of my music.   Does it work with Musicbee? I notice some albums are much louder and using Peace APO Equalizer the VU meter shows it maxed out for the songs that are MP3 Gained and some albums that are way louder than others that are put through MP3 Gain.   I can't figure out why.   I have this same problem on the new Poweramp V3.   

[frankz]

Edit->Edit Preferences->Player...sound effects...normalize volume of tracks with replay gain tags

You can select which tags are considered under "Controls"

[railfan-eric28]

Edit->Edit Preferences->Player...sound effects...normalize volume of tracks with replay gain tags

You can select which tags are considered under "Controls"

Thanks.  I just tried but it's already selected.   I also noticed in the edit panel when looking at the file info it doesn't show the volume info.   Just says not calculated.   it only shows the volume levels if musicbee is the one that does it.   So it makes me wonder if it's reading the MP3 gain tags.   

[frankz]

Yes, I conflated two things not thinking.

I gave you the steps for replaygain.

MP3Gain, from what I understand, adjusts the actual gain within the file.  The file will show no calculated volume adjustment in MB because there is no replaygain tag.  The file is already adjusted, by MP3Gain, to be the "normalized" volume.  That's the whole point of MP3Gain - that players will not need to do additional adjustments to get everything playing at the same volume because the file itself is played at the standard volume.

==
It...modifies the overall volume scale factor in each MP3 frame, and writes undo information as a tag (in APEv2, or ID3v2 format) making this a reversible process. The scale factor modification can be reversed using the information in the added tag and the tag may be removed.
==

MP3Gain does write a tag, but that is an "undo" tag that tells it how to remove the adjustment it made.  It has nothing to do with MB.

So, if you've run the files through MP3Gain, you should have MB's volume adjustments off.  The point of MP3Gain is that additional adjustments don't need to be made by the player.  And, if they're playing at different volumes with Replaygain turned off, it's a problem with how they're being processed in MP3Gain.

[sveakul]

Perfect description by frankz.  MP3Gain actually makes real "internal" adjustments to the file's gain.  It's tag is not something that allows players to make their own while-playing adjustments, it's a tag that allows MP3Gain to "undo" its own internal gain adjustment to that file.

[railfan-eric28]

thanks for the info.   btw what is better MP3 Gain or the Replay Gain in the player?  I like MP3 Gain because i can put in what decibels to set it as verses the RPgain in the Musicbee I can't do that.   The RP Gain in the Musicbee player has a volume slider but I"m not sure how to get it to match what i do in MP3 Gain.   I use 94 on MP3 Gain. 

[hiccup]

what is better MP3 Gain or the Replay Gain in the player?  I like MP3 Gain because i can put in what decibels to set it as verses the RPgain in the Musicbee I can't do that.   The RP Gain in the Musicbee player has a volume slider but I"m not sure how to get it to match what i do in MP3 Gain.   I use 94 on MP3 Gain.  

There are a couple of important things to understand.

In the past MusicBee also used ReplayGain (which is what I believe MP3Gain is still using as the engine?),  but nowadays MB uses the EBU R128 algorithm.
The latter is vastly superior in matching how our ears and brain experience the loudness of sound.
Remember that that is what these algorithms try to accomplish: analyse and simulate the perceived loudness of sound for the average human.
A dog or a goldfish would need a very different algorithm.
And even one person might experience the end result different than another person.

If you would compare results of RG vs R128, especially when using varying content such as rock music, classical music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc, you'll immediately notice that R128 will match those all to a much more uniform perceived loudness.

The '0' setting that MusicBee shows in the slider has nothing to do with any 'zero' at all.
(It's a common misunderstanding, even with some experienced MB users)
You can consider it as some reference to the old RG standard, and it suggests it will give results comparable with a default setting that was often used for RG.
But as they are very different algorithms, the results will often not be a close match.

So, if you set the slider to the 0 dB, nothing is actually 'set to 0 dB'.
It sets the perceived loudness to -18 LUFS.
And for every increase/decrease by a dB, it will raise/lower the targeted LUFS with the same value.
So e.g. setting it to -9 dB will result in -27 LUFS.

Pretty much all serious and professional audio software uses these LUFS scales.
Common target settings for professional (broadcasting) audio is to aim for -24 LUFS.
But for personal audio use you will probably want to aim higher.
I believe that platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and iTunes Radio aim for different ranges somewhere between -9 and -16 LUFS
So, depending on your personal preferences and equipment you can decide for yourself what works best for you.
The lower you decide to set your aimed loudness, the less you will be prone to experiencing possible problems with clipping.
Personally I am usually aiming for -21 LUFS, which is the -3dB setting in MusicBee.

[Freddy Barker]

Very interesting - thanks for that! I'm now wondering when the EBU R128 was include in MB and do I have to run Volume Analysis again to all tracks in my library?
Regards: Freddy

[hiccup]

I'm now wondering when the EBU R128 was include in MB and do I have to run Volume Analysis again to all tracks in my library?

It was implemented some 5 years ago, so you probably don't need to worry about re-scanning.
It would have been good if the scale was changed a bit to represent better what it does now.